Instead of me using direct lecture to teach the lesson and write key points up on a whiteboard, I could substitute a PowerPoint or use Google Slides to emphasize key points in the lesson. There would be no functional change to the lesson this way!
Augmentation
Instead of just taking notes on a piece of paper, students can use Evernote to organize class notes. Since students will be working on character development, Evernote will give students the tools and room necessary to be creative with their characters. As I go through different character traits and touch on the different forms of dialogue students can use in their stories, students can go back to their characters and add more detail/descriptions/dialogue to their characters! They can even sketch out what they want their characters to look like and highlight points in their notes that they think are central to their character! This will make the character development process easier for students and ensure they are taking the time and using the resources necessary to create interesting characters for their stories! Functional improvement is added to the lesson using Evernote.
Modification
Using Google Docs allows for a significant redesign of the lesson, as students are able to share their work with their peers in a click of a button and can comment on each other's work, entering in dialogue about what makes a story "creative." I could pose this question to students and have them highlight each other's docs, giving their peers feedback on the scenes in their stories that use the most creativity and the scenes that could use a little bit more using different highlight colors. This is a great way for students to receive feedback on their creative writing thus far and gives them the opportunity to revise their work with the feedback provided by their peers in the comments section. Students can refer back to certain scenes in their story and view comments where peers might have brought to light the writer needing more detail or further explanation of what is happening in a specific scene. They can also offer suggestions to each other. Students can also highlight via Google Docs where the writer might have made an error that needs to be corrected. Or, perhaps, they just want to highlight a character's name that they thought their peer did a great job developing or want to connect to a scene in their own story!
Redefinition
Using code.org, students are able to re-create different scenes in their stories, bringing them to life! This offers the student a visual of the stories they have spent time creating. Additionally, once the student's stories are perfected/revised, they will combine all of their coded stories and host a "digital storytelling" night for their community, sharing their coded stories and the impact of creative storytelling! Here, the students are creating what was previously inconceivable, using coding to bring their stories to life and sharing their stories with their community in an innovative way!
